TransCanada Whistleblower\'s Safety Complaints valid by Regulator
Audit confirms company did not meet federal standards.
You can\'t say that pipeline source Evan Vokes did not warn North Americans that one thing was wrong with TransCanada\'s pipeline safety system.
In one in every of many forthcoming audits on the company\'s management practices, free on, the federal pipeline regulator confirmed that the corporate isn\'t obliging with the law on variety of issues of safety.
Prompted by Vokes\' criticism and a number of other media investigations, the NEB found that the corporate was \"non-compliant\" on problems designed to forestall and predict pipeline failures, as well as hazard identification, risk assessment, operational control-upset, scrutiny and management review.
The audit arrives simply 2 months when associate degree explosion at a TransCanada gas line in Canadian province. It sent a fireball into the sky and left four,000 residents while not heat throughout a bitter patch. the corporate continues to be making an attempt to work out what caused the explosion.
Vokes, associate degree skilled on pipeline attachment practices, worked for TransCanada for 5 years and was discharged while not cause in 2012 when persistently raising considerations regarding the company\'s safety practices with senior management.
Problems have popped au courant alternative TransCanada lines. In 2013, as an example, the NEB ordered the corporate to repair unsound instrumentation on a gas line in Grand grassland. Since 2009, the U.S. Transportation Safety Board has conjointly investigated the corporate for 3 pipeline malfunctions and ruptures in Ontario.
So many dents, dangerous welds and \"anomalies\" are known on the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline in southern Texas that the U.S. pipeline regulator issued TransCanada variety of blunt warning letters last year.
In his criticism to the NEB, Vokes specifically highlighted problems on 2 of 3 TransCanada lines that toughened major incidents in 2013.
Vokes told the NEB regarding issues at the pelecaniform seabird Relocate gas line in Fort McMurray. The oilsands line later burst and closed down main road sixty three in 2013. Neither the NEB nor the Transportation Safety Board announce any notice on the incident.
Vokes conjointly careful attachment problems on the North Central passageway, another oilsands line, that blew up last year. That rupture forced oilsands firms to reduce production. The NEB later ordered TransCanada to scale back pressure on the road to shield public safety.
The NEB is additionally investigation the company\'s use of quite 600 steel pipe and fittings put in on the Keystone pipeline on either side of the border \"with the potential to exhibit not up to such as yield strength.\"
http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/02/26/Whistleblower_Complaints_Validated/
TransCanada source Evan Vokes Details Lack of Confidence in Keystone XL
Environmental teams are pressuring President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, a high capability, air mass line that may transport diluted hydrocarbon from the Canadian province tar sands to the Gulf of North American country. Tar sands crude is a lot of carbon intensive than standard crude, additionally as a lot of corrosive, making the potential that dilbit can erode pipelines quicker. Spills will cause irreparable harm to water provides, land values and ecosystems.
Vokes, within the professional pipeline camp, has grave reservations regarding this too. however he\'s primarily involved regarding the pipeline itself, thus shoddily designed that it should well poison aquifers and damage people\'s health. President Obama has told the state that his call on the Keystone XL pipeline are supported whether or not or not it considerably will increase carbon emissions.
Vokes hopes that when TransCanada\'s code violations become knowledge, the President also will offer weight to the project’s integrity and address the risks of ruinous consequences.
TransCanada was already in hassle with Canada\'s National Energy Board once Vokes started operating for them in 2007. 3 court orders had been served compelling the corporate to adjust to pipeline construction rules they\'d been caught violating.
Part of Vokes\' job as a pipeline materials engineer was to insure the corporate complied with the court orders. To comply, the corporate had to stick to the accepted codes of pipeline construction set by the yank Society of Mechanical Engineers. lost from the adopted code isn\'t solely dirty, it will compromise the integrity of a pipeline.
During his 5 years with the corporate, Evan Vokes did his best to induce TransCanada to spot and solve its issues. a number of Vokes’ prompt changes were accepted; others weren\'t. Vokes persisted: He urged compliance to regulation to insure quality and safety; but the corporate continued to stress price and speed instead of compliance.
Despite his efforts on behalf of reform, in 2011 Vokes found himself observant failures in multiple comes, as well as the bovid pipeline that runs from discoverer, WY to Jelly Roll Morton County, ND, and therefore the Keystone one, that runs from Hardisty, Canadian province to Harvery Williams Cushing, Oklahoma.
Faulty welds, defective elements and hurried preparation for the pipeline installations were inflicting issues.
The Keystone one failing shortly when it began operational, causation associate degree 80-foot oil geyser into the air for forty five minutes till the possessor alerted TransCanada. Twenty one thousand gallons spilled before the road was close up. associate degree automatic characteristic did not sight the spill once the line’s pressure started spewing oil. The Keystone one had fourteen leaks in its initial 2 years of use. Shortly when the bovid pipeline was place into use, it burst associate degreed suffered an explosion blasted on construction failures.
Pressure mounted as Vokes resisted sign language off on flaws that went against his ethical fiber and therefore the engineering code of ethics that needs putt public safety before the interests of the corporate.
When his manager ordered him to prevent his investigations in March 2011, Vokes persisted, uncovering associate degree ever increasing scope of wrongdoing. In Gregorian calendar month 2011, he wrote to TransCanada business executive Russ Girling, giving his own mid-year assessment when Girling welcome worker input.
” I actually have to quit or fight,\" he told his boss, writing the following:
\"It is with nice merriment that I see the quarterly mention of the unsatisfactory project and nonetheless nobody at the company level makes mention of why did these comes fail and UN agency was command responsible. Instead we have a tendency to see promotion for those who say ‘Yes’ as we have a tendency to create the regulator madder. we have a tendency to task those that were instrumental within the failure with investigation themselves and if you dare speak of what happened it\'s classed as personal attacks on fellow staff.”
He listed all the items he was making an attempt to try and do, the positive changes that TransCanada had embraced since he began, and therefore the shortcomings that were still overlarge for Vokes to simply accept.
A few days later, he was placed on what TransCanada deemed stress leave. notwithstanding, Vokes felt compelled to end what he started, making an attempt to remedy the issues from the sidelines.
Vokes sent inculpative proof of code violations to the Association of skilled Engineers and Geoscientists of Canadian province, the Canadian National Energy Board and to the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and dangerous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
He was discharged once he came back to figure.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/09/22/transcanada-whistleblower-evan-vokes-details-lack-confidence-keystone-xl
Let’s take a glance at TransCanada\'s record
Keystone I, a pipeline moving primarily tar sands from Canadian province to the Midwest and Sooner State, was TransCanada’s initial crude pipeline. TransCanada pitched it as a progressive pipeline which might “meet or exceed foremost safety and environmental standards.” In its environmental risks assessment, the corporate forecast that Keystone i\'d leak no quite one.4 times a decade and noted that it had in agreement to fifty one special conditions that may increase its safety.
When construction on the project began in 2008, reality began to sharply diverge from TransCanada’s rhetoric. because the Keystone i used to be being designed, a pipeline inspector operating for a TransCanada contractor, was afraid by what he saw – low-cost steel at risk of cracking, bad welds, sloppy concrete jobs, poorly spaced rebar, and fudged pressure testing. once he rumored these problems to TransCanada, he was unnoticed and ultimately discharged.
A source UN agency has step up with info regarding the Keystone pipeline is certain to possess his message go unreported by CNN and therefore the remainder of company media. microphone Klink of chromatic IN was associate degree inspector for the primary section of the Keystone pipeline and says that TransCanada systematically perform throughout construction of the primary section of the pipeline, continually selecting to avoid wasting cash rather than breakdown issues of safety.
In associate degree op-ed within the Journal Star of Omaha, Klink said, \"What did I see? low-cost foreign steel that cracked once staff tried to weld it, foundations for pump stations that you just would ne\'er think about using in your house, fudged safety tests, Bechtel staffers explaining away leaks throughout pressure tests as \'not unfortunate,\' shortcuts on the steel and rebar that ar essential for safe pipeline operation and siting of facilities on fully inappropriate spots like wetlands.\"
TransCanada says that the performance has been OK. Fourteen spills isn\'t thus dangerous. which the pump stations do not really matter. that\'s all bunk. This factor should not be unseaworthy sort of a sieve in its initial year — what does one assume happens decades from currently when moving billions of barrels of the foremost corrosive oil on the planet?
Let\'s be clear — i\'m associate degree engineer; i\'m not telling you we have a tendency to should not build pipelines. we have a tendency to simply mustn\'t build this one.
http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/mike-klink-keystone-xl-pipeline-not-safe/article_4b713d36-42fc-5065-a370-f7b371cb1ece.html?mode=story
Because Klink, a engineer, referred to as attention to however Bechtel, contractor for the TransCanada pipeline, was cutting corners and mistreatment shoddy materials, he was discharged from his job.
\"TransCanada did not seem to worry. that\'s why i used to be unsurprised to listen to regarding the large spill in Ludden ND wherever a 60-foot plume of crude spewed tens of thousands of gallons of deadly tar sands oil and fouled neighboring fields,\" Klink expressed.
Keystone is solely another example of the requirement for robust, forceful regulation of company behavior to shield the remainder folks from narrow-minded greed. And, Virginians higher certify that robust regulation is in situ before holding Virginia atomic number 92 and its Canadian backers open that atomic number 92 mine in Pittsylvania County. Beware, Virginia, the fix is already in, and solely citizen pressure will set back that call.
Keystone I started having issues as before long because it commenced operations in 2010. In its initial year, the pipeline leaked fourteen times, with the biggest spill olympian twenty one,000 gallons. Federal pipeline regulators were forced to intervene, supplying a Corrective Action Order (CAO) quickly closing the pipeline down as associate degree at hand threat to life, safety and therefore the environment. Keystone I became the latest pipeline in U.S. history to receive such associate degree order – the previous competitor was a twenty five year previous pipeline.
After finishing Keystone I pipeline, TransCanada started a construction on its bovid fossil fuel pipeline in August 2010. However, before long when commencing the project, the corporate bumped into troubles. In an indoor note in Gregorian calendar month 2010, the pipelines’ construction manager listed issues with reference to attachment and scrutiny, final “we ar in hassle with the bovid project.”
Federal pipeline regulators inspecting the bovid project took issue with the quality-assurance of inspections, the qualifications of individuals acting on the pipeline and therefore the procedures accustomed check the coating on the pipe.
While awake to these problems, TransCanada touted the additional safety measures it absolutely was taking for its “state-of-the-art” bovid fossil fuel pipeline, claiming that the pipeline “will be in situ for 20 or 30 years before they have any repairs.” *Two months when TransCanada professed the security of its bovid pipeline, it exploded, destroying a sixty foot section with a wave that would be detected thirty miles away*.
Evan Vokes, a TransCanada applied scientist sent to arranged the issues with the bovid project, found samples of shoddy attachment and poorly trained inspectors UN agency weren\'t characteristic all of the attachment issues. Moreover, he came to seek out similar shoddy practices through TransCanada’s operations. In response to his considerations, his supervisors sent him what he describes as “increasingly pressured emails regarding however things were alright to roll in the hay that manner.”
At the invite of Russ Girling, TransCanada\'s business executive, Vokes provided documents to senior executives of the corporate that documented general failure to follow code and rules in 2011. However, within the face of inaction by management and when determinative that TransCanada was systematically inserting budget and schedule issues before quality, he raised his considerations with Canadian pipeline regulators at the NEB. when associate degree initial investigation, investigators verified several of Vokes’ claims and have launched a sweeping audit of TransCanada’s operations. NEB regulators cited concern with TransCanada’s non-compliance with NEB rules associate degreed what could also be an erosion of the security culture at the corporate.
It is a recognition that there was one thing extremely wrong with TransCanada. as a result of in my letter to Russ Girling, I told him that [TransCanada’s] business arrange doesn’t match the NEB rules. Evan Vokes, Former TransCanada metallurgical engineer
Mr. Vokes actions are commendable and NEB’s call to research them ought to be applauded. sadly, no such action has been taken within the us in response to microphone Klink’s allegations.
*TransCanada initial argument that Kink was only 1 of the many inspectors to assert safety shortcuts looks significantly feeble currently that
1) Evan Vokes has created similar claims that are verified by the NEB
2) U.S pipeline regulators have already taken issue with the shortage of quality-assurance inspections on TransCanada’s pipelines
3) within the NEB’s investigation, TransCanada has in public admitted it\'s pressured inspectors to log out on get rid of to code.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aswift/transcanadas_record_presents_a.html
Industry lobbyists claim that safety programs habitually defend the general public and therefore the setting from pipeline failures with regular in-line inspections which may embrace x-rays, machines referred to as pigs, special monitors or aerial surveys.
Yet firms fail to sight issues on their pipelines all the time, says Vokes.
A recent review of U.S. pipeline information by InsideClimateNews found that nineteen out of twenty pipeline leaks aren’t detected by remote sensing systems. Landowners and staff at the scene of ruptures report the bulk of all incidents.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board conjointly makes the same purpose in its sweeping critique of Enbridge safety practices on Line 6B before the Michigan hydrocarbon spill - the biggest pipeline spill ever recorded within the U.S.
Given that the pipeline business proposes to double the nation’s pipeline capability over succeeding decade, the problems raised by Vokes merit careful restrictive and political scrutiny.
http://ecowatch.com/2012/10/01/pipeline-whistleblower/
History of Oil Spills Plagues way forward for Keystone XL PipelineHistory of Oil Spills Plagues way forward for Keystone XL Pipeline
The Center for Biological Diversity has created the time-lapse video below, America’s Dangerous Pipelines, highlight pipeline incidents from 1986 to 2013, hoping on in public obtainable information from the federal Pipeline and dangerous Materials Safety Administration. (Watch the video within the link below)
Only incidents classified as “significant” by the agency ar shown within the video. “Significant” incidents embrace those within which somebody was hospitalized or killed, damages amounted to quite $50,000, quite five barrels of extremely volatile substances or fifty barrels of alternative liquid were free, or wherever the liquid exploded or burned.
According to Environmental Action, in August 2013, the Texas Observer rumored that a former TransCanada pipeline inspector same shoddy construction and repair practices will definitely cause devastating leaks.
After operating as a TransCanada engineer for 5 years, Evan Vokes voiced considerations to his bosses over the competence of pipeline inspectors and therefore the company’s lack of compliance with federal attachment rules. once his complaints went unacknowledged, Vokes filed a criticism with federal regulators and was after discharged in could 2012.
The downside, Vokes said, is that poor construction practices and a canful cognitive content of engineering codes and rules will create leaks a lot of doubtless.
The Obama Administration is anticipated to finally create its call within the close to future on the fate of Keystone XL. whereas several ar waiting with bated breath on what the decision can mean for them, pipelines round the country still burst, leak, spill and ooze their deadly, corrosive content into the setting.
http://ecowatch.com/2013/08/14/oil-spills-plagues-future-of-keystone-xl/
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